Research - Miss Begum: Narrative Theory

Narrative Theory

What is narrative and why is it important to audiences?

Narrative mainly means story or the plot and account of events of what's happening a piece of media that could be either a film or literature. Narrative is really important especially to the audience because not only do they want to watch a good film with a great story-line they expect a lot of from a film no matter what type of genre. The film must make sense and the story has to be perfect that's why a lot of films are quite popular since a lot of people have recommended the film to other people because its good or great piece of film work.

Creating meaning in texts: what four elements allows the audience to find meaning

There are four elements which would help the audience the elements of structure

Characters
Characters are needed to represent the meaning of the story. for the audience to understand the narrative character need to fit with what's happening with the storyline. This is done by what clothes that character wearing, when the character reacts to another character decision. This will allow the audience to understand what that character playing weather she an antagonist or protagonist.

Connotation and denotation
Connotation and denotations is another way that the audience understands what's happening during a storyline. an example of a connotation and denotations in a thriller would be the costumes because the audience would understand whose the protagonist and antagonist and a reaction from the audience if they only found out what's happening in the film.

Genre
Genre helps create meaning by helping the audience to understand what type of film category it belongs to. The audience already have expectations on what could happened during the film since it belongs to a certain kind of genre.

Structure
A structure of a film creates meaning because the audience would understand what's happening during the film. A structure allows a film to follow an order of what's happening and what's probably or should happened next. Moreover will not make the film confusing to the audience, most films would have a Start, middle and a End

There are many theory's behind a good narrative ranging for, what types of characters that are in the story to the themes within a story line. In the next couple of paragraphs i will be talking about several theorist who come up with really good theory's about narratives

Propp (characters): who was he and what did he say. Refer to examples

Vladimir Propp born in 1895 had a theory about narrative however his field of speciality was in Folk tales however you can infer what he saying about most narratives. Most story-line would have seven different types of character within the story-line.

• Hero- The protagonist in the story
• Villain- The antagonist in the story
• Donor- Helps the protagonist by giving him/her a magical object
• Dispatcher- The character who sends off the hero on his quest
• False Hero- Perceived to be the protagonist however he isn't and probably is wrong
• Helper- who helps the hero throughout the quest
• The Princess the person who often need to be rescued and most of the time is used 
• Her Father- the father of the princess and the reward of the hero also the main target to villain.

Most Narratives/story-line will not have these characters as these wont fit in with the story-line with that particular story-line since the theory was more specialized in folk tales however the next part theory was more about the structure of a story-line, Propps theory on structure was split up into several parts.

• Complication where the hero is planning to stop a villain. 
• Transference where the hero reacts what happened with the Donor a
• Struggle The villain would have to be overcome
• Return The hero returns to place of origin however he's not recognised as a hero
• Reconciliation. The Anti hero is proved to be wrong and the real hero is celebrated

Most narratives are similar to what props theory is however again prop's theory is more usually specialized with folk tales and may not be relevant to most narratives within the thriller genre.

Todorov (eq=diseq=new eq) :who was he and what did he say? Refer to examples

Tzvetan Todorov born in 1939 world renown historian and philosopher. He had a theory on how a narrative but unlike with prop's theory it was more generalized and related with other genres. Todorov theory was more off that there was a start middle and ending to a story-line. Start or the Equilibrium is where the story starts and everything going well. Then theirs the middle or disequilibrium when everything start taken for the turn for the worst and new equilibrium when has been sorted and/or fixed.

Todroev theory had more sense since most story-lines would fit more with most narrative since most films that have been made fits what most films have done past compared to propps theory.

An example of Todreov theory would be Taken

The reason why because there is an Equilibrium, disequilibrium and a new equilibrium. The Equilibrium is where everything was going ok for the main character The disequilibrium would be when his daughter gets kidnapped and the New equilibrium would be he rescue his daughter.

Aristotle (themes and emotions): who was he and what did he say? Refer to examples

Aristotle who was born in 300 B.C and one of world best theorist had a narrative theorist. Aristotle theory on about narrative structure is the same as Todorev Theory however there is more detail on what happens during the storytelling. Exposition is the first part of a structure, this is where the audience would meet the main character. Then you would have the rising action Protagonist understands what they have to do then there is climax where just a lot of tension and then fall action which is the turning point of the film and denouement where everything is solved. Aristotle theory would apply to most films and most genre however there are several notable exceptions. Another important theme that Aristotle talked about was about themes and emotions that occurred within narrative and this can apply to films. This apply to his theory that you can use acting to provoke reactions from the audience during some parts of an narrative.

Barthes (semiotics) : who was he and what did he say? Refer to examples

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 he is a French literary theorist and philosopher. his theory was that narrative can be defined by couple points or codes.

Semiatic- Additional meanings within a narrative
Symbolic- Narrative that allows character development and drama development within a storyline.
Cultural- Narrative that is apart of an culture that can be recognized

What narrative structure do thrillers tend to take and why?

Narrative structures can changed depending on what type of genre it is, The close structure that thriller would use Todreov theory there's usually a problem a problem they tried and fail to solve it in middle and solve it at the end however. The thriller genre is less likely to follow any of these theory's or structure since thriller genre usually would have twist in them also, in some cases the problems may not be solve by the end of the film and could actually be worse then it was at the beginning of the film. Also the narrative is usually different compared to other genre of films therefore the theory's may not apply to the thriller genre. However with all narrative structre these can apply to other genres.

Conclusion: what narrative theory/ies will you use in your thriller and why?

In my thriller i will be using Todreov and Aristotle theory since they both make the most logical sense with the thriller genre. The main reason why i would use Todroev because it most sense to have the film structured in that way since its simple and dose not make the filming more complicated when you film the thriller in a different way and the mean reason why Aristotle theory is because Aristotle theory suggests using character development when structuring the narrative and this could help me with the opening because i need to show how we meet the character and what's happening during the opening cut-scene.